Litmag n + 1…

…is now available online.

According to a federal appeals court…

…Jessica Seinfeld is not guilty of plagiarism.

Literature and technology intersect…

…at The Literary Platform.

Twi-hards* can now own…

…their very own copy of Bella Swan’s engagement ring.

______________________________

*For the uninitiated, that word refers to fans who are Very Serious about their love for Twilight.

The 2010 Edgar Awards…

…have been announced.

The nominees for the 2010 Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction…

…have been announced.

The list includes Ian McEwan’s Solar.  It’s a choice that many in the book world have been amused by — in 2008, McEwan was quoted as saying ”I hate comic novels; it’s like being wrestled to the ground and being tickled, being forced to laugh.”

The publisher’s description is:

Michael Beard is a Nobel prize–winning physicist whose best work is behind him. Trading on his reputation, he speaks for enormous fees, lends his name to the letterheads of renowned scientific institutions, and half-heartedly heads a government-backed initiative tackling global warming. While he coasts along in his professional life, Michael’s personal life is another matter entirely. His fifth marriage is crumbling under the weight of his infidelities. But this time the tables are turned: His wife is having an affair, and Michael realizes he is still in love with her.

When Michael’s personal and professional lives begin to intersect in unexpected ways, an opportunity presents itself in the guise of an invitation to travel to New Mexico. Here is a chance for him to extricate himself from his marital problems, reinvigorate his career, and very possibly save the world from environmental disaster. Can a man who has made a mess of his life clean up the messes of humanity?

A complex novel that brilliantly traces the arc of one man’s ambitions and self-deceptions, Solar is a startling, witty, and stylish new work from one of the world’s great writers.

As always, if you would like to place a hold, please call the library at 985-2173 or visit our website.

On April 30th, 1933…

…country singer/songwriter Willie Nelson was born.  Check out this performance of Willie Nelson’s “Crazy” by Elvis Costello, Diana Krall and the man himself:

Read on for some related items in our collection (descriptions from the publishers follow the titles):

On April 29th, 1967…

…Muhammad Ali was stripped of his boxing title after refusing induction into the United States Army.  Read on for a couple of related items at the library (descriptions from the publishers follow the titles):

We have some nonfiction titles in the children’s room, as well as two biographies in our adult nonfiction section, including King of the World: the Rise of Muhammad Ali by David Remnick:

On the night in 1964 that Muhammad Ali (then known as Cassius Clay) stepped into the ring with Sonny Liston, he was widely regarded as an irritating freak who danced and talked way too much. Six rounds later Ali was not only the new world heavyweight boxing champion: He was “a new kind of black man” who would shortly transform America’s racial politics, its popular culture, and its notions of heroism.

No one has captured Ali–and the era that he exhilarated and sometimes infuriated–with greater vibrancy, drama, and astuteness than David Remnick, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Lenin’s Tomb (and editor of The New Yorker). In charting Ali’s rise from the gyms of Louisville, Kentucky, to his epochal fights against Liston and Floyd Patterson, Remnick creates a canvas of unparalleled richness. He gives us empathetic portraits of wisecracking sportswriters and bone-breaking mobsters; of the baleful Liston and the haunted Patterson; of an audacious Norman Mailer and an enigmatic Malcolm X. Most of all, King of the World does justice to the speed, grace, courage, humor, and ebullience of one of the greatest athletes and irresistibly dynamic personalities of our time.

New installments in two historical mystery series!

I’m a fan of both of these series, so you’ll have to get in line if you want these!  (Or, if you haven’t started either, you could just begin at the beginning…)  Descriptions from the publishers will follow each title.

First up (in chronological order) is Ariana Franklin’s A Murderous Procession, her fourth book starring Adelia Aguilar, a twelfth century forensics expert:

In 1176, King Henry II sends his ten-year-old daughter, Joanna, to Palermo to marry William II of Sicily. War on the Continent and outbreaks of plague make it an especially dangerous journey, so the king selects as his daughter’s companion the woman he trusts most: Adelia Aguilar, his mistress of the art of death. As a medical doctor and native of Sicily, it will be Adelia’s job to travel with the princess and safeguarding her health until the wedding.

Adelia wants to refuse—accompanying the royal procession means leaving behind her nine-year-old daughter. Unfortunately, Henry has arranged for the girl to live at court, both as a royal ward and as a hostage to ensure that Adelia will return to the king’s service. So Adelia sets off for a yearlong royal procession. Accompanying her on the journey are her Arab companion, Mansur, her lover, Rowley, and an unusual newcomer: the Irish sea captain O’Donnell, who may prove more useful to Adelia than Rowley would like.

But another man has joined the procession—a murderer bent on the worst kind of revenge. When people in the princess’s household begin to die, Adelia and Rowley suspect that the killer is hiding in plain sight. Is his intended victim the princess . . . or Adelia herself?

Don’t forget…

…that in addition to our Friends of the Library Book & Bake Sale and the Faerie Festival, Saturday, May 1st is Free Comic Book Day!

For more information about any of our programs, please call the library at 985-2173 or visit our website.